Hopiko is a platformer about nothing but jumping

I keep lamenting that there are so few games about jumping, as most platformers are secretly roguelikes or crafting games or RPGs or. Hopiko [official site] meanwhile is about only jumping, to the extent that it doesn’t include other genre staples like walking. Instead you move simply by using the analogue stick to aim in a direction and then releasing the stick again to set yourself in motion.

The effect feels a little like your flicking your character, shifting them between platforms in space like pinging a subbuteo player across a green cloth sheet. The difference is that instead of balls you’re aiming for platforms, some of which move, or flip when touched, or drift as if in low gravity, and instead of opponent footballers you’re attempting to avoid lasers, angry red platforms and the edges of the level. Your target is a juddering mess of squares, which represents a virus infecting the games console the game takes place within. Here’s a trailer:

And here’s a GIF, which is sort of the game at its best – fast and reflexive and precise:

The reality of playing it is that you’ll be failing a lot, which is fine as restarts are quick, although I found myself frustrated that each failure sets you back to the start of the stage and not the specific level you were on. Stages are five levels long, which means you might end up having to repeat a bunch of easy tasks again and again to get back to the challenge which keeps giving you trouble.

Hopiko is due for release on January 6th and will cost $7/£5/€7 on Steam.